“I really believe that all things are possible if you believe… and all chains are breakable.” — Debra Hopkins
There are some people in this world that just exude passion. It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter what the specific thing they’re passionate about is — you just know that whatever they put their energy into, they’re going to do it with their whole heart.
Debra Hopkins is one of those people.
I first met Hopkins nearly five years ago. We were introduced by LA-based public relations specialist Jessica Katz who we had both worked with on various projects. Katz thought we’d hit it off. She was right.
From the instant we met, there was no doubt in my mind: Hopkins was one of the most passionate people I’d ever encountered.
The area that Hopkins chose to put her passion into is admirable, to say the least: she runs a non-profit called Breaking the Chains Foundation (BTCF), which aims to combat body image and mental health stigmas through the healing power of art and creative expression. Having dealt with body image and disordered eating issues throughout my late teens and early twenties myself, I resonated with its message as soon as Hopkins shared it with me and joined the Board shortly after our first meeting. I’ve been part of it ever since.
At first glance, Hopkins’s smile and bright eyes catch you, her brunette bob bouncing with each movement. But it’s her energy that truly defines her. Those who know her feel it — an openness, a sincerity. She wears her heart on her sleeve — in the best way.
“I was always very bright eyed,” she says, recounting her childhood. “Everything was positive.” She was always full of energy, too, which channeled itself into activities like climbing trees, building go karts, and, eventually, cheerleading and dance.
Growing up, she particularly fell in love with dance, and by sixteen, she was competing and even teaching younger kids jazz and modern dance. She poured her passion into the art.
When she was offered a full dance scholarship to Oakland University, she jumped at the chance. During her college years, she encountered a world filled with travel and exciting challenges. Yet it was also during this time that she was first introduced to the dark undercurrent of eating disorders within the dance community.
“I didn’t know how people could do that to themselves,” she says. “But I found out very quickly in the dance world that that’s a thing.”
Still, Hopkins managed to avoid having an eating disorder throughout college. She had a healthy relationship with her body and solid support from family and friends. But slowly, after being in front of the mirror 24/7 and surrounded by people who were normalizing it, she found herself grappling with it.
“I started to associate my body with being good enough in it,” she says. “I think it was just a sense of gaining control. And everybody around me was making it regrettably normal.”
After college, Hopkins’s life became a whirlwind of touring and performing in Los Angeles, where she now lived. At the same time, she sought out training as a fitness instructor. Before long, she got the opportunity to lead and design the fitness program for the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. During this time, surrounded by people who normalized it, her emergent eating disorder snuck up on her.
Still, when Hopkins realized what was happening, she knew it wasn’t normal or okay. She wanted to talk about it, to find out how others like her dealt with the experience, and most importantly, to heal. But she couldn’t find any resources to turn to. And her peers in the world she lived in — the world of dancers and fitness competitors — just acted like it was part of the job.
“Nobody was ready to give it up because they thought it was normal or just a phase… and nobody knew that it could hurt you badly. And when I did bring it up or want to talk about it, I was hushed.”
Hopkins learned early on that she should just be quiet and deal with it. She even lost friendships over it.
“I experienced very early on that I was supposed to keep quiet… which is really ironic because eating disorders are so silent. They’re a silent disease. They’re so shame based.”
The Turning Point
The turning point came one night when she was working a cruise ship as a fitness instructor, deep in the throes of her eating disorder. By that time, she had become good at hiding it. None of her close friends or family members knew what was going on.
“I was the person everybody came to,” she says. “The confidant, the leader. I was the one who had it all under control. But I didn’t.”
That night, Hopkins’s friend who was working the cruise ship with her walked into the room in looking terrible. “She was green and swollen and bloated,” Hopkins says, her eyes casting downward. “And I could see crumbs on her shirt.”
“I was so sad to look at her like that,” Hopkins recounts. “It just really struck me.” She didn’t want to end up like her friend. So she did the only thing she could think of: she got down on her knees and prayed. She needed help. Now.
This happened to be on Mardi Gras, and as Hopkins stood up after her plea, she heard some people whooping and hollering down the hall. She peeked her head out the door to see what was going on.
“Hey honey, you want to join us?” An older couple adorned with Mardi Gras beads asked her with big smiles on their face. They had just won the cruise dance contest and radiated joy, a stark contrast to the scene Hopkins had just witnessed moments before.
“I can’t… I’m working,” she replied. But the experience still gave her pause. Who were these joyful people, and why did they show up just when she needed help the most?
When Hopkins returned to Los Angeles after the cruise, she randomly ran into a man who was wearing a t-shirt with “Sovereign of the Seas” displayed on the front, which happened to be the name of the cruise boat she had just gotten off. When she realized that it was his parents who had been on the ship, she couldn’t believe it. She took it as a sign. She gave herself permission to have a voice.
“My husband was the first person I ever told about my eating disorder,” she tells me. At this point, we’re both wiping tears from our eyes. I can’t help it.
“He was the first person that said to me, ‘This disease does not define you. You are so much more than this.’”
Hopkins took that to heart. His support gave her the strength she needed to go through recovery. It was at that point that she became convinced that she wasn’t alone. Others must be suffering in silence too. She decided her voice was worth hearing.
Giving Others a Voice
Hopkins didn’t want to be quiet anymore. She wanted to share her story — to change the conversation around “this shameful, guilt-ridden, lonely, and hidden disease” and help people connect with one another and heal. So she started to talk.
It wasn’t easy at first. “People say to me that I always seem so confident,” she says. “if I tell you the truth, most of the time I’m afraid. But I have this thing that’s faith over fear and I just jump into it.”
Her story resonated. It didn’t take long before other people started to share their stories with her, too.
“It became this passion project,” she says. “I wanted to dive into things like self-love, self-appreciation, and self-awareness.” She knew she couldn’t be alone in feeling so much pain.
Hopkins began by asking what it would look like to love ourselves and our bodies. Then she formulated this personal mantra: “I want to change the face of eating disorders – I want to change the conversation. It’s not what it looks like on the outside, it’s what’s going on in the inside.”
She did all this through artistic expression and dance — which, to her, had always been places where she found the most hope.
“Art can be very healing because it’s this beautiful, shared process not only to those that create, but also for people who experience it — which makes it timeless and limitless,” she told Mark Sylvester in their recent TED x Santa Barbara Salon conversation. “I’ve always believed that art can take on a shape all its own. It’s breathtaking, It’s meditative. It fills our darkest and happiest emotions.”
Through her experience as a dancer, Hopkins also knew that art can be a place that people turn to even when they feel like they don’t have a voice. It can be therapeutic and healing. It can give people a place to connect and tap into what it means to be human.
She started out of pure passion for the cause, sharing her personal story through Hollywood-style campaigns and photoshoots featuring dancers and other artists. But it didn’t take long for her message of using art as a form of healing to get picked up in local and national media outlets, videos, and popular blogs. All of this gave her further confirmation that people did want to talk about it.
Still, she didn’t start out wanting to build a non-profit. It just kind of happened. After two years of putting her heart into it, Hopkins decided to take her passion project to another level. BTCF came into fruition in 2016.
“When I was really struggling, the words ‘Breaking the Chains’ just wouldn’t go away in my mind,” Hopkins says. When she realized what they meant to her were breaking the chains of what she had been going through, she channeled that purpose, energy, and intention into the foundation itself, which has now expanded beyond just prevention of eating disorders to the healing and prevention of body focus and mental health stigmas as well.
“I really believe that all things are possible if you believe… and all chains are breakable,” she says.
Staying On Fire
Even when we’re following a passion, that doesn’t mean every day will be carefree and easy. Every artist, entrepreneur, and athlete know that there will be days when the grind just feels like too much.
And then… there’s running a non-profit. In the past decade since its fruition, Hopkins has done it all: the ideation, marketing, design, promotion, recruitment, board meeting notes, fundraising… you name it. And while she’s gotten better allowing others to help (BTCF now has dozens of people involved, including board members like me, advisors, ambassadors, partners, and volunteers), she still takes on the bulk of it.
So how does she manage it all without burning out? Personally, I don’t know.
“I don’t know how many times I wanted to quit,” she says when I ask her this. “But you know what? I swear every time I want to, I get a call or an email from someone. It never fails that something big changed in their lives [as a result of BTCF].”
“I had a friend who had a friend with a daughter who was suffering so bad,” she continues. Her friend had tried everything under the sun to help, but nothing worked. But the daughter, a dancer, came across BTCF and loved their messaging. For the first time, she wanted to talk about what she was going through. She asked her mom if she could connect them.
“And so my friend gave her my number and they reached out to me. And thank goodness we had clinicians on the board to help this girl. We got her into recovery and she’s doing amazing.”
It’s real-life stories like that that keeps Hopkins on fire even when she is starting to feel burnt out. But she also knows that in a rewarding yet challenging job like hers, she’s at high risk for burnout. So she plans ahead for it. She makes sure to take time to herself — even when she doesn’t feel like she has the time to take. She regularly journals, exercises, follows her many curiosities, and spends time with the people she loves.
Recently, she even has started painting again, and says that it has helped remind her of just how capable she is. “It reminds me to be mindful of myself… to know that I have other strengths and potentials.”
Hopkins says it’s these nurturing moments that help “take care of our mind, body, and spirit” make all the difference in sustaining our passion long-term. They can also help us discover parts of ourselves outside of our main passion we may not even knew existed.
And it’s in those very moments when she feels like she’s fully taking care of herself and not just running on fumes when she becomes revived.
“And that’s when I find my passion all over again,” she says. “Because then I reset. I set new intentions for myself.” She stays on fire.
We could all learn something from Hopkins’s approach.
“When I speak of having passion, of having a non-profit… yes, it’s still challenging,” she says. “There are still things that are out of my control. But I know deep in my heart that it has greater purpose than I can only imagine. And that it’s opened windows and doors for people that wouldn’t have opened otherwise.”
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Hopkins’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
One Lesson: Passion Doesn't Have to Be Just One Thing
The prevailing myth that we're each destined for a singular, "true" passion can be misleading and, for many, disheartening. Hopkins’s story reminds us that passion can take many forms in our lives. It's not about finding the one perfect fit but embracing the possibilities that come with exploring different interests. Sometimes, choosing something is the most important choice.
One Exercise: Passion Balancing Act
When we find something we’re really passionate about, it can be easy to be consumed by our passion and forget about everything else. Hopkins shows just how important it is to take time away and reset to stay on fire long-term. Try it: Carve out time that’s entirely separate from your work or primary passion. Write, paint, go on a hike, read, play your favorite video game — whatever brings you joy but doesn’t resemble your usual tasks. Even a 15 minute reset a few days a week can help you recharge.
One Curiosity: How to Start a Non-Profit
I’ve had an idea for an animal-related non-profit for a while now (one of the passions that has surfaced in my life since I was young is animals), but the idea of starting a non-profit always feels a bit… overwhelming. Hopkins’s story reminds us that even the most challenging endeavors — like starting and running a non-profit — are driven by passion. And, remembering B. Earl’s advice to break big goals down into micro-tasks, I’ve now put the smallest related task on my to-do list: research the initial steps to starting a non-profit.